Era by Era

[higbi]

I've always been tempted to try and go era by era on solo servers.  In nearly every case it's been met by challenges when facing end-game targets.  I wondered if anyone was interested in creating some alts to help partner up with me in accomplishing these tasks.  As a druid I'm sure I could help PL a character pretty quickly.

Why don't you box? You say.  I don't like boxing, it makes everything a bit too mechanical and less organic for me.  I also don't have the system to box effectively at this time.

Right now I've set my cap at 52 and am working towards taking down old world targets, Nagafen, Vox, and possibly Phinny.  I'm also trying to stick with gear from the appropriate era, (No Planar or Kunark gear). No success as of yet.

Sunbeam and I took on Naggy the other day with his 52 Paly with some nice gear from other eras and he creamed us.  I think we got him to 70%.  If I was to continue with this standard it appears I may need a group of at least 4 to take these beasts down.

I'm thinking of trying out the planes at 52, but it's very likely I'll change my restrictions on that decision.

Send me a personal message with a character name or send me a tell in game if anyone is interested in doing this with me.

[slaughterhouse]

This is an idea for the way the server could work in the future, have accounts locked by progression from each expansion. Kil`drakens (spelling?) use to do that, and you could either do a solo quest or take out a few of the bosses for that expansion to unlock the next expansions zones and levels if the level cap increased. This was based on account so if you ever made an alt you didn't have to go through it all again, was really cool. Obviously would need some tweaking depending on how many people Osiris wants to group in order to take out raid bosses ect, but just an idea.

[medi]

I'm definitely interested in this. I know 3 or 4 of us started leveling alts to do this.

What exactly was your thought on how you'd be doing this? I was thinking this:

No twinking, in era gear acquired by characters only, only in era expansions (maybe we use PoK just to get around and save downtime after a wipe, or not whatever people want), kill raid mobs in each era a few times before moving on. There's no rush on a server like this, end game comes really quickly.

I've done this with people in the past and it is great. The number one problem with this, is getting people behind actually not twinking out at all and making their characters just ridiculous. The biggest downfall of a server like this is the inevitability that eventually everyone gets overpowered and can clear things without opening their eyes.

Of course based on the number of people who are interested, or difficulty and reality of this working, we could adapt some rules here and there if it is literally impossible with the numbers we have.

Let me know what you think guys.

[sunbeam]

This may sound weird, but just looking at the way things play out with enhanced stats, Shamans kind of suck. We are used to them being super soloers on Live, at least in the old eras most of us seem to come from.

But the enhancements really don't do much for them. No PBAE for cleaning out trash. DOT's aren't as useful as DD in general. Slow may be nice, but we really only care about slowing certain select mobs, and they are a pita to debuff enough to slow.

I'm sure they solo super tough mobs like WW dragons and summoning mobs quicker than Druids (not sure about Clerics honestly with the proc hammers and the first Ward spell they get).

But other than that they seem like what they do either doesn't matter (mana regen with Canni), or takes too long like dot's. And honestly PBAE is super useful here. A swarm of things that a cleric can PBAE away pretty quickly could take a long time for a shaman.

Plus the dot's they get, well I'd imagine you have to debuff some to get them to stick, unlike the winged death line or some of the necro dot's.

Oh yeah, and the buffers give out most of their buff spells aside from Avatar.

[medi]

No doubt they aren't the best damage, but that's not a shamans role. They are a buff and debuff king. Slow is 100% necessary if we're going to be doing this legit. Remember there's no buff bot in classic. I know at least the path I'm taking won't be using it. Between heals, slows, debunks, SoW, and start buffs shamans ate gonna be pretty much a requirement in my opinion. Leave the damage to the DPS.

We all have solo characters that can wreck whatever they want when we want. I think the idea behind the classic reroll is a challenge and group aspect. At least that's what I gathered.

[slaughterhouse]

I only have one idea on how to avoid us becoming too overpowered with stats while still being able to do content to get geared in the first place. Dropping items down to X3 stats or less could help, and would also fix any bugs with items having too many stats (+40 would end up being +120). Then make the stats do more for the characters so you're still getting close to the same effect after the stats nerf. This could make people more powerful in the beginning, and less powerful in the end. I honestly don't think the X stats on items is good for the server and makes it harder to balance, especially at 5X

That being said, if that cures the problem of becoming too OP in the end, we can make buffers like shamans actually get a % bonus to their buffs based on stats like on vengeful, so an end game shaman casts avatar with 1000 wis (keeping in mind items are X3 in this scenario) maybe he gets 2X the effect, being able to buff melees twice as good as normal. This will bring back what the shaman is currently missing. If we do go down the route of using a custom spell file we could make enchanters int/wis buff more powerful, bring the haste cap up to 300% and make their haste better they would come back to being the cool support class they were in live EQ (Since mana regen doesn't matter here they'd need to make up their buff elsewhere, is why I give the idea of making them give just more int/wis and haste each effected by the casters int)

[sunbeam]

I don't think I know this game as well as you do slaughterhouse, but assuming things like the Avatar encouter's adds are mezzable, an enchanter or bard would make a lot of things we've had difficulty with much easier.

Of course there just aren't that many encounters where that comes up, except in PoP it seems to me. ToV it wouldn't matter very much. The boss mob encounters in Vex Thal are mostly solo encounters.

[slaughterhouse]

I never had problems with those fights on my necro soloing. I have my pet back off and pet attack buttons side by side so I kind of spam those to get the pet to pick up agro on different targets at the start of the fight, worst case scenario my pet would enrage then hit everything once, then I could heal him without agro. Always re-summon him after so it comes back up for the next Avatar and you're good.

[Osiris]

Feb 6, 2015 11:56:58 GMT -8 slaughterhouse said:

I only have one idea on how to avoid us becoming too overpowered with stats while still being able to do content to get geared in the first place. Dropping items down to X3 stats or less could help, and would also fix any bugs with items having too many stats (+40 would end up being +120). Then make the stats do more for the characters so you're still getting close to the same effect after the stats nerf. This could make people more powerful in the beginning, and less powerful in the end. I honestly don't think the X stats on items is good for the server and makes it harder to balance, especially at 5X

That being said, if that cures the problem of becoming too OP in the end, we can make buffers like shamans actually get a % bonus to their buffs based on stats like on vengeful, so an end game shaman casts avatar with 1000 wis (keeping in mind items are X3 in this scenario) maybe he gets 2X the effect, being able to buff melees twice as good as normal. This will bring back what the shaman is currently missing. If we do go down the route of using a custom spell file we could make enchanters int/wis buff more powerful, bring the haste cap up to 300% and make their haste better they would come back to being the cool support class they were in live EQ (Since mana regen doesn't matter here they'd need to make up their buff elsewhere, is why I give the idea of making them give just more int/wis and haste each effected by the casters int)

Some of these ideas are already in the works, there is definitely going to be a re-assessment with regards to making the post 60 game more balanced and playable.

[higbi]

Update:

I was able to tackle everything solo with my druid using only gear from original EQ. All the dungeons were pretty trivial at 52 with the exception of King room in lower Guk and some areas of Kedge Keep. I wound up burning my veteran AAs (Infusion of the Faithful, Intensity of the Resolute) that boost stats and damage in order to take out Nagafen and it worked! I think utilizing the Vet AAs to accomplish the task is interesting to me. Had I kept Higbi at 52 for a longer period of time I could only kill one of the dragons once per day since the Vet AAs have a refresh of 20 hours I believe.

I tried to tackle the planes but at 52 but the DPS can't keep up with mobs with 12k hp. It was taking me 3-4 minutes to kill one creature. I'm working my way through Kunark now and will have more to report again soon.  I'm setting my lvl cap at 60 and will be using Kunark era spells.

[higbi]

Update:

I finally reached level 60 but still have quite a bit to do in Kunark. I'll be working on my epic and Veeshan's Peak key for the time being. Things have gotten a little bit easier with my spells but I still have some road blocks with creatures like Black Reavers and dungeons like Old Sebilis. I'm positive I'll need help with a zone like Veeshan's Peak (assuming it isn't the revamped zone). Look for me in the afternoons CST, that's when I typically have consistent play time.

[Osiris]

what kinds of issues are you having with Reavers and OS?

[higbi]

No tech issues at all. Reavers have a lot of hitpoints. I think about 52k. It's a bit of a challenge to kill them based on their hitpoints and the fact that they summon, but I still have some item slots that need upgrading which will tone down the fight a bit. OS is the same. Average hitpoints are between 6-12k for the mobs which means if I'm getting several a pull it can be a narrow escape for me. It's just not an easy dungeon to pull without Lull. Things will start to ease up when I get some more of my stats boosted by gear so I'm not terribly worried, but where I'm at now one extra person would cut down on the challenges of soloing.

[Osiris]

I think you are using gear only up till Kunark, is that correct?

If that is correct, I think what your saying is somewhat encouraging. Because your telling me going era by era and you are not dominating the mobs, but still able to solo them (although it may not be easy). Also, as you said, you can still benefit from some gear upgrades, so the soloing 'issues' could definitely diminish once you get some gear upgrades.

I would have a different reaction if you were telling me with your current setup (even with a few pieces that need upgrades) that were you able to dominate mobs.

what is your current STR and AC?

[sunbeam]

He's playing a druid. I think part of his problem with the reavers is how much Magic Resistance they have. You aren't going to snare or root them, plus they summon I think.